February 11, 2015 | Short Order

Irish beef, not mad anymore, hopes to stampede the locals

By Kaitlin Hill

Photo by James Higgins
Chef Jean Paul Jeunet, Simon Coveney, and Chef Cathal Armstrong. Photo by James Higgins

          After a fifteen-year ban over fears of mad cow disease, Irish beef is now free to enter the United States. To celebrate, Bord Bia, state promoters of everything edible and Irish, teamed up with a couple of star chefs to woo big time local meat mavens, merchants, and press in the lounge at Daniel Restaurant

          The mingled New York beef royalty included local chefs, importers, a duo from Smith and Wollensky, and Suzy “Sirloin” Strassburger, fifth generation of the east coast meat family. (I imagine she didn’t get that name from eating salads.) As a novice in the tasting world, I was eager to hear their seasoned opinions.


The consommé wasn’t very pretty but tasted rich and meaty.

          For me, the Irish flat iron steak consommé with sunchoke custard and hazelnuts seemed delightfully beefy. Peter Smith, from Smith and Wollensky’s front office, seemed to agree. But in what way was that essence uniquely Irish? I wondered. Obviously, my palate wasn’t sufficiently bovine-refined.


A perfectly crisp chip adorns the top of a delicate pile of grassy tartare

          Next we were offered tartare two ways. Dublin-born Chef Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Virginia, stuffed “pasture-raised” Irish ribeye tartare on a pastry gougère. Two-star Michelin chef Jean Paul Jeunet, flown in from Paris, put together beef tenderloin with oyster gelée. My fears of being a hopeless novice lifted when I realized I could actually detect a note of grassiness in the delicate tartare.


I found the foie overpowering – but it could be because I’m Irish not French.

          As beef tenderloin and foie gras Carpaccio with black truffles began to circulate, Barbara Jones, from the Consul General of Ireland office, joined me for a taste. We seemed to agree we weren’t wild about the foie gras. She noted that it was a decidedly un-Irish idea. Having descended from a MacCormac, I felt I had the right to agree.

          Seduced by sophisticated beefy bites and stirred by the enthusiasm of Ireland’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Marine, Simon Coveney -- the crowd seemed ready to sign off on the need for importing Irish beef.

          That might be shocking at a moment when many American chefs are striving to focus on local purveyors and the big global footprint is disdained.


Photo by James Higgins

          But Bord Bia’s commitment to sustainability, transparency, and naturally grass-feeding seemed to move the crowd. The romantic notion of buying beef from a cow, supposedly raised in an open pasture by a particular farmer, in a bucolic Irish countryside seemed to overcome the phrase “foreign export.”

          Additionally, the idea that Americans, who eat over 200 pounds of beef per person a year, are facing a domestic beef shortage and price hikes, seemed to make many agree that Irish beef could be an irresistible solution.

          Bord Bia hopes that restaurants across America will proudly list “Irish Grass-Fed Beef” on their menus. That remains to be seen.

 

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